The Infinity Ball

Chapter 1

Felicity

I knew the steps well. Slower steps, then fast. Like a wild animal chasing its prey. Being the best dancer here tonight makes me the top of this food chain, which means I can dance with whatever guy I want. They're afraid to reject me, the foxtrot queen. That's what I'm called here, ever since I wore an orange dress one of my first nights at this ball.

I march Thatcher and me through the ballroom. People clear out for us since I have a good reputation here. Though I'm a princess, this is the only place where I feel like I've lived up to the status I was born with. Finally, people watch me, amazed at my dance moves. There's no one older to show me up like an instant competition. In Norillia, my reputation is kept by how I talk. But here, there's action and entertainment in place of speech. But I can still talk if I want to.

"You know, if you can dance better than Gladwin, maybe they'll crown you the foxtrot king."

"But wouldn't such a high status need the consent of the foxtrot queen?" he asks flirtatiously.

"This dance is the approval they'll need," I tell him.

He spins me one last time and the song ends. The people who weren't dancing cheer for us and the other dancers. Reese walks over to me.

"We did so well!" she exclaims. "It's one of our best foxtrots yet!"

"It was second best," I tell her. "That's enough for a new foxtrot king."

I stand on my tip toes and draw a small crown over Thatcher's head with fire. It hovers, avoiding his hair.

"It'll burn out," I assure him as I walk away with my friend.

"So, did he ask you out?" Reese asks.

"No," I tell her. "He seemed like he would, but he didn't. I guess I'll only see him here."

"You could ask him out," Reese suggests. "I asked out my dance partner from last week and we went on a nice date in his kingdom...as soon as I was able to find a way to teleport there."

"I'm happy that went well," I say. "I was concerned you wouldn't be able to go. Anyway, I'm not asking Thatcher out. I don't like him enough."

There were quite a few guys here that I was interested in, but I had already gone out with a few of them. I'm too scared to ask them out because I'm afraid they'll turn me down or that I've made the wrong choice by putting the idea in their head that we could be in a relationship, so I wait for them to ask me out.

Franklin, the last guy I dated, was a prince from Scopulum in Aqua. He was decently cute and friendly, but he was also great at dancing. He asked me out after dancing almost every night for several weeks. He found a way to teleport to Norillia and we dated long-distance for a month or two, but he broke up with me. Most relationships of people who meet at the Infinity Ball are long distance and that's the problem with them. That's why they don't last long. I'm worried about Reese. This is one of her first relationships and her first relationship from the Infinity Ball. I don't know if she'll be the one to break up with him or vice versa, but I don't think it will go well. I'll be there to hug her and say mean, fake things about him that we'll keep between the two of us.

I'm great at keeping secrets. I've lost count of how many I'm keeping right now. They build up and stab me in the back, but I'm numb to their pain. I lose regret for keeping secrets the longer I keep them. It used to be the opposite, but then I started to forget about them. I'm sure I have some ancient secrets so forgotten that they're covered in cobwebs in my brain. What's my secret keeping secret? I write them in a diary disguised as a boring royal etiquette book.